440 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
tection to the valuable goods kept in them; but with these ex- 
ceptions, and a few fine residences, even nominal “ cities”? are 
collections of shanties, scattered about with little regard to 
order, and fitted up with little provision for comfort. 
The wandering character of the population, and the want of 
permanent and comfortable homes, render the mines an unsuit- 
able place of residence for families. There are a few women 
in the mines, and of these few a considerable share are neither 
maids, wives, nor widows. The general proportion of adult 
men to adult women, throughout the mining districts, is prob- 
ably not less than three to one, and to married women, four 
to one. p 
It sometimes happens that miners having wives in the east- 
ern states have them come to live in the mines; but ina con- 
siderable proportion of cases this arrangement is not a per- 
manent one. Anxious as the inexperienced wife may have 
been to live with her husband, and willing as she might be to 
share his privations, the result has often been that she found 
life in the mines unsuited for herself and her children. There 
are many good, virtuous, and intelligent women living in the 
mines, and perhaps as well contented there as they would be 
in any other part of the world; but there are not enough of 
them. 
If there were no other evil than this scarcity of women 
traceable to the present tenure of the mineral lands, that one 
fact would be enough to settle the question that the mines 
must be sold. The family is no less essential to the good order 
of society and the prosperity of the state than it is to the hap- 
piness of the individual. A community of American families 
must have permanent homes; they must own the land in fee- 
simple; and there cannot be a large community of families in 
the mining districts of California unless the land there be sold. 
The scarcity of women is again the first link in a great 
chain of evils. Some men in the mining counties would like 
to marry, but cannot find wives to their choice. They must 
either travel thousands of miles to get a wife abroad, or take 
